Aniconism, Images and the Divine: Part 2

Examples of aniconism -- the avoidance of images or idols -- can be found across multiple religions But what does it DO? What does it mean to employ religious icons or to avoid them in the contemplation of supernatural or natural objects and beings? In this Stuff to Blow Your Mind two-parter, Robert and Joe look for answers.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Land, and I'm Joe McCormick.
And today we're picking up with part two of our
talk about an iconism in the history of art and religion.

(00:23):
An Iconism, as we described in the first episode, is
the demarcation of divine presence without figural representation. Uh. And
that that was a definition that was given in an
essay that I talked about in the last episode from
the Journal Religion in seventeen by the Yale University art
historian Milette Gaffman. And so in the last episode we

(00:45):
talked about some issues with defining the concept of an iconism,
and we talked about some specific examples from Greek religion
and from Hindu religion. And we're back today to keep
exploring more on the topic. So, but if you if
you haven't listened to the first episode, you probably really
should go back and check that one out first, because
that lays a lot of the groundwork for what we're
talking about today. Yeah, and I do want to remind

(01:06):
everybody that that, again, this is a topic where it
ultimately touches on an array of different cultures, different moments
in time, different places around the world, and it's not
something where you can really just you know, boil it
all down to, you know, a universal law or too
concerning like why um an iconism is utilized and you

(01:29):
know what its values are, what it's you know, the
pros are, the cons etcetera. It's going to vary from
culture to culture UM And and likewise, a lot of
our I guess bigger questions about it, like what does
it do? What? You know? Those two are are going
to be elusive. You know, you're not gonna really be
able to come up with like one solid answer UM
that is going to cover everything. Though in the last

(01:49):
episode we did talk about some specific studies of anichonism
that tried to identify some trends that again are probably
not going to be universal. But for example, one of
the payers we looked at last time was by a
scholar named Haberman that looked at a sort of spectrum
of iconicity in the religious significance of trees and stones
in some Indian rituals. And one of the trends that

(02:12):
was extrapolated from that at least as Haberman argued was
that it seems, especially devotional religious practices or religious practices
that put a lot of emphasis on the relationship between
the person and the god tend over time often to
transform originally an iconic images such as just unadorned rocks

(02:34):
and trees as symbols of divine presence into more iconic
versions of themselves. So you might end up decorating those
rocks and trees with clothing or with masks that have
a face on them. Yeah. I particularly like Haberman's ideas
regarding what happens when you put a face on a god,
you know, and uh, and he brought up like facial

(02:55):
recognition and and and and how you know that leaning
into personific patian an anthropomorphism regarding these intangible you know,
mythic ideas and about how you know. Ultimately it makes
something more uh you know, tangible for your your brain
to lock onto. So I wanted to start off today

(03:16):
with an example of of an iconic religious representation that
is sometimes known in the scholarship as divine emptiness. And
this is held up in contrast to material anchionism, where
you uh, you know, where where you have an object
that is the marker of divine presence. But it is
in itself an object. It might be a large stone

(03:39):
or a tree, or you know, a big sphere or
something like that, or a pillar, but it's not it's
not anthropomorphic, it's not theeomorphic, but it is still a
material object. Is it possible to signal divine presence by
calling attention to an empty space? At least in some
cases it is? And uh, the first example I want

(03:59):
to look at is a monument on the small island
known as Hulky that is spelled sometimes C H A
l K E, sometimes H l k I. It's a
small island off the coast of roads in the A,
G and C. And here I'd like to read from
that essay by Millet Gateman that I introduced in the
last episode. Quote. In the late nineteenth century, Friedrich Hiller

(04:22):
von Gertringen visited the slopes of the acropolis of the island,
and as he climbed up the hill, he came across
a boulder with two rock cut seats. Upon close inspection,
he noticed that each of the two seats was labeled
with a divinity's name. In the genitive case, the name

(04:43):
of Zeus appears on the left and that of Hecate
on the right. And this really got the gears turning
in my brain. That connects to a lot of things,
including some things in Christian art that I'll mention in
a second here. But um, yeah, this is very interesting.
So there are some obvious limitations on what information we
can we can draw from this, like the lack of

(05:05):
archaeological record from the site, coupled with the lack of
other evidence, makes it hard to determine whether this monument
was ever the object of rituals or of worship. You know,
people stand before it and bow down. But the fact
that the empty stone thrones are labeled with the names
of God's seems like at least pretty good evidence that

(05:26):
this is a type of an iconic monument if we
go with the index of divine presence definition, because of
course it in a way notes the potential presence of
a divine power without showing them in human or an
animal form. Uh. And this would be an example of
empty space and iconism because the actual icon you are

(05:48):
imagining here is the God sitting within the throne, but
they're not there. It's an empty chair. And this is
by no means the only example of the empty throne
is an index of divine presence. This is actually he
found all throughout different religions of the world. Uh, the
empty throne of the Buddha, and some Buddhist start rob.
I think you've got some information on that in a minute.

(06:08):
But they're all kinds of divine furniture. It's sometimes called
in Greek religion, where this is a thing that the
God will sit upon or stand upon, a footstool of
the God, a throne of the God, but the God
isn't in it. And a big example that came to
my mind is the prepared empty throne from Christian art,

(06:30):
which is often understood to be waiting in preparation for
the second coming of Christ, so when Christ comes back,
he'll sit here. This imagery seems especially common in the
Eastern Orthodox Church. I was looking up some materials on
this and I found a short book published by the
JP Getty Museum that was by Alfredo Tradigo and translated

(06:52):
by Steven sarter Relli, and it's writing generally about the
prepared throne tradition, but with specific attention to one icon
and particular that's known as the heat toy masia, which
is also a general term that's applied to a lot
of this artwork. I think it means like prepared throne
or preparedness, something like that. But this particular icon that

(07:13):
is being examined in this book is the back half
of a two sided icon from Athens of the fourteenth
century that's kept in the Byzantine Museum. And there are
some pretty interesting common features that you find on a
lot of these prepared throne artworks from Christian history. So
for one thing, Tridigo writes, quote, few individual icons are

(07:37):
devoted to this subject. It is more often inserted into
complex compositions such as The Last Judgment and Sophia the
Wisdom of God. The image of the preparation of the
throne or heat toy masia is usually found on the
backs of icons of other subjects, such as the famous

(07:57):
icon of the Virgin of Vladimir. The throne being prepared
is that on which Christ will sit during the Last Judgment,
lying upon the empty throne or the cloak of Christ
the judge, and a closed book in the icon on
this page, however, the book is open to a passage
in the Gospel quote, come oh, blessed of my father,

(08:18):
for I was hungry, and you gave me food, which
is a quote from the Gospel of Matthew. Behind the
throne stands across the lance, and the cane with the
sponge drenched in vinegar lean against it, while the crown
of thorns hangs from it. On the fourth step of
the throne stands a vase with the nails. And so
you've got a lot of this, uh, this this imagery

(08:38):
that's charged imagery having to do with the passion narrative
and Christianity and other visions of the Last Judgment. But
I also find it interesting that this prepared throne of
the Last Judgment, this empty chair that Christ will sit in, uh,
he says, is often not the center of a religious
work of art, but it's so maybe somewhere off in

(08:59):
the corner or on the back side of an icon.
I'm not quite sure what to make of that, but
that that seems interesting to me. It um, you know,
I was thinking it It's like, okay, it's this what
it sounds like. It has all the an iconic paraphernalia,
you know. Uh, And in a sense, it almost it
reminds me a bit of hoarding. It's like a hoarding
of an iconic symbols. And I mean you think of

(09:21):
why do people hold onto objects and things because of
their association with with with times and places and people.
You know, so perhaps a similar energy going on there.
And certainly, yeah, if you if you are disinclined to
show a human form or a humanoid form in the art,

(09:42):
you have all of these additional things to draw from
places that the individual was, things that interacted with the
individual's history or the myths concerning them. Yeah, that's right,
but it also highlights of course, you know, one of
the things we mentioned in the last episode is that
certainly within the history of Christianity, there is not a
lot of strict an iconism throughout its history. There's there's

(10:03):
a pretty uh pretty complete blending of iconic and an
iconic traditions throughout the centuries of the Christian Church. But
part of this idea is that like this is a
place where Christ is not yet but will be. This
is a kind that has not occurred yet but will occur. Uh.
So it makes sense that it's unoccupied, that it's unlived in.

(10:26):
It's like you know, it's like like the like the
airport and the langal ears right. Yeah, yeah, I think
that's right. So the empty throne here would seem to
me to take on a special meaning in the Christian
context versus say, the Greek context, which I'll come back
to in just a second, because Christianity has elements of
apocalyptic eschatology, which Greek religion usually doesn't. Maybe you could

(10:46):
find some elements of it, but it's certainly not as prominent.
So in the Christian context, an empty throne prepared for
Christ has a special significance, meaning like, our Savior isn't
here yet, and that's why everything is so bad. Everything
is messed up in his absence, but he's coming back
soon and then everything will be made right. So it's

(11:07):
actually saying something about the world, not just by pointing
to the figure of Christ, but specifically by being currently empty.
The current temporary absence of the thrones occupant is in
itself theologically meaningful. I was thinking about how the television
series Game of Thrones leaned in either intentionally or sort

(11:27):
of accidentally or just through you know, cultural um awareness
of the trope into this by by promoting at least
one season of the show with just an image of
the iron throne unoccupied. Yes, yes, And and the emptiness
of the throne actually says something about the show like
that that's very up for grabs. It's not just a
symbol of the kingship, but a symbol of the sort

(11:49):
of open potential. Yeah. Yeah, And and if you lean
into it the right way, the hope that someone will
set upon it and set things right right. But to
come back to the example I started with the empty
thrones of Zeus and Hecate. One thing I wanted to
mention is that it has been argued that the Christian
tradition of empty throne, uh would you say iconography or

(12:11):
an iconography, uh, is at least to some extent derived
from the empty throne imagery in Greek religion before it,
which which brings us back to those rock cut thrones
from the island of hulky Um. So this, this monument
on the island, raises all kinds of interesting questions about
how people think of God's when they engage in religious practices. Uh.

(12:32):
Thinking back to the first episode, if that that cone
of the cult of Aphrodite and Pathos indicates the presence
of divine power without showing the goddess having a body.
I guess it is in that case. In the case
of the cone left ambiguous, whether the worshipers were picturing
Aphrodite as having a body at all like it, it's

(12:53):
not clear what they were thinking about, or whether they
thought of her as something more more abstract, more disembobied, audied,
and so forth. But the empty thrones of Zeus and Hecate,
they are thrones. Thrones are made for bodies to sit on,
and they're basically human sized, So you could argue that
these thrones are indications of a figural representation without including

(13:16):
the representation. They do ask you to picture Zeus and
Hecate as essentially bipedal hominids. They indicate that Zeus and
Hecate have butts, and the butts could sit in those thrones,
but they don't show them to you. The iconicity is
implied and it happens in your imagination. And I do
wonder how in general this would this would tend to

(13:38):
change the religious experience. Is this somehow is this closer
to the experience of the anthropomorphic icon just a straight
up statue of a god, or is it closer to
the non figural symbol of divine presence, like the cone
of Aphrodite, or is it something something totally different altogether. Yeah.
When you start, you know, considering the idea that it's

(14:01):
that it's that it's telling you this is a place
where the gods have set or will set or can set.
It raises so many questions about like why I can't
see them right now? Why am I beholding an empty
throne now? Is it? Is it tied to some legacy
of of the like some story about the gods having

(14:21):
appeared here or having set here in the past and
therefore thrones were built, or you know, there was a
you know, you know, hallucinations of the gods occurred here
and therefore these things were built. Or is it the
idea that sometimes the gods can be reached and therefore
this is a place prepared for them, This is a
place where they can be at home. Yeah, all really
good questions. And and the one I come back to

(14:42):
is I wonder if there is any theological significance to
the current emptiness of the thrones, like you could argue
there is in the Christian context. You know that Christ
is not on the world right now, so it is
appointedly currently empty but he will be coming. Is the
current emptiness of the Zeus and hecateate throwne. It all
like that, Yeah, And then of course it also probably

(15:04):
draws in questions about like, well, okay, if this is
a place for the gods, I'm assuming humans are not
allowed to sit here. Uh. So you know, there's some
level perhaps of of the forbidden there as well. This
is a place set aside for the gods, This is
not a place for humans, right. But of course, even
though it has been argued that the Christian prepared throwne
tradition could be derived from the traditions in Greek art

(15:27):
of you know, furniture for the Greek gods, uh, it's
clear that this is a motif that appears independently in
other religions as well, like because there are empty thrones
in Buddhist start work. That's right. There's a great deal
of Anichonism and early Buddhism so prior to the first
century CE, which you know might seem surprising, you know,

(15:48):
to to a lot of people, because when you think
about Buddhism, certainly when I think about Buddhism, one of
the things I think about are those of those various
images of the Buddha. You know all these fabulous works
of art um you know, paintings, and you know, inscriptions
and sculptures and various reproductions of a of a human form.
But as Susan L. Huntington's pointed out in early Buddhist

(16:10):
art in the Theory of an Iconism in Art Journal
in nineteen nine, early images and seem to have avoided
showing depictions of the historical Buddha or the the or
Buddha Sakyamuni, this is a Siddharta Gattama said to have
lived fifth to the fourth century BC. So instead of

(16:31):
depicting that individual or some version of that individual in
these these early settings, there seem to have been a
strong emphasis instead on showing trees and wheels, um stupas
and thrones, and those of course can be deeply tied
into the story of the Buddha as well. For example,
I know, one of the biggest images in in Buddhism,

(16:52):
other than the Buddha himself embodied, is say the Bodhi tree,
which it has said that the Buddhist sat underneath, right,
And that's that's uh, that's definitely connected also to this
idea of of the throne um, particularly at the diamond
throne or of Vadrasana, the enlightenment throne of the Buddha.
And this is um uh. This is an example of

(17:15):
an actual empty throne, that that is that is still
still around. You can go and see this. It's located
at at a Maha Bodhi temple at bowd Gaya in India.
So it is a stone slab installed beside the Bodhi tree,
and this is said to be where the Buddha attained
enlightenment in five BC. Now the slab itself is thought

(17:40):
to have been built by the emperor Asoka around two
fifty or two two thirty three b C. And the
tree there, the Bodhi tree, is not the original Bodhi tree,
but it is said to be an offspring of that tree. Uh.
And this the current tree is estimated to have been
planted around two fifty b C, or at least it's
been it's been said to have been planted there, So

(18:01):
not the original tree, but it's said to be the offspring.
And anyway you look at it, potentially a very old tree. UH.
The sacred fig or Um or Ficus religiosa. Can live
in estimated nine hundred to fifteen hundred years, and some
specimens are said to be much older. So even if
this is you know, this is not the original Bodhi tree,
if it's you know, some descendant of the Bodhi Tree,

(18:23):
it's still like a really old, really impressive tree. So
you can look up images of this. But the Diamond
throne is this essentially this stone platform that is then decorated. Uh.
Sometimes there is like this um this parasol there as well,
uh and various other um you know, iconic implements. But
there is no individual on the throne. There's no statue
of the Buddha on the throne. And basically, you know,

(18:47):
I mean we have to come back at the end
of the idea that this is something from a particular
moment in the story of the boot of the idea
that they have achieved enlightenment, that ultimately the Buddha has
um you know, has has has has moved on into
Nirvana and you know, is beyond you know, the limitations
of the physical form in this life, etcetera. And so

(19:08):
there's a lot of that in the an iconic aspects
of the image. Oh that almost seems an inverse of
the Christian prepared throne, right like if the if the
empty throne of Jesus is that, well it's empty now,
but he's coming back and he'll sit in it. The
empty platform here is almost like, well he was here,
but he left. Yeah, I mean, I guess if I

(19:28):
was going to to compare it to something in Christianity,
I would I would think about the empty tomb right
with the stone rolled aside, you know, the idea of
being what he is not in here. He's gone on,
He's moved on to other things, a sign of what
he transcended right now. The author of this paper, I
should I should point out Susan L. Huntington's um. They
argued that such an iconic images in Buddhism are quote,

(19:52):
not substitutes or symbols for something else, but are important
emblems of Buddhist devotion in their own right. And and
they argue that that these are not indicative of an
quote unquote an iconic period during which there were laws
or you know, pressure against the icons of the Buddha. Uh.
This was apparently not the predominant interpretation prior to that,

(20:15):
but I I am to understand it. You know, like
basically Susan Ol Huntington's was was kind of a well
dare I say, an iconoclast in uh in bringing around
this this new understanding. And certainly I think there have
been there's been various um, you know, findings that backed
this up as well. Like it's not like there were
no images of the Buddha prior to this. Um it
was you know, it was it was, you know, certainly

(20:37):
a trend in depicting um the you know, the the
the story of Buddha and uh and and you know,
various aspects of of of Buddhist belief. Uh. But uh,
but again a lot I think it seems to be
tied more to that story of the Buddha. Again, like
this is a this is a this is an actual
place in the history of the Buddha. This is a

(20:57):
time in the history of Buddha, and this is what happened.
So it's not empty as a result of a prohibition
on depiction of the Buddha, but it's empty as a
result of a deliberate choice stemming from the story that
it's based on. I guess it's kind of like if
you go to a museum, say it's a historic house
or something. They may have, Hey, here's the writing desk
desk of this individual. Now sometimes they might have a

(21:18):
wax version of that, you know, like founding Father or whatever,
setting at the desk, But plenty of times you're not
going to encounter that. It's just going to be here's
the desk where they set. Imagine what that was like,
if you will. So I don't think it's particularly you know,
like lofty theological concept for us to wrap our heads around,
because I think if anybody who's gone to a museum
or historic location has encountered something of this nature, it just,

(21:42):
you know, is inevitably not as as sacred a story
and sacred a figure. So in looking at these examples
in particular, a question that really interests me is is
there any difference on average for the mental experience of

(22:03):
a religious adherent of occult with a figural icon like
a statue of Zeus or something versus an empty space
icon like these examples of sacred furniture, you know, the
diamond throne or the empty throne of Zeus and Hecate.
I was trying to see if I could find any
possibly applicable scientific research here. I did find something that

(22:23):
might tell us something interesting, though I want to be
careful not to over interpret. But we'll see if this
seems at all relevant. So I did find a study
from the Journal of Cognitive Psychology in two thousand eleven
by William L. Thompson, Yawling Siao, and Stephen M. Koslin
called Dissociation between visual attention and visual mental imagery. And

(22:44):
this study addressed the question what is the difference in
the brain between focused visual attention and mental imagery? In
other words, what is the actual difference between seeing and imagining?
And in a way, this paper is responding to some
some theorists who had said they're actually in many ways
the same thing. And we've known for a long time

(23:06):
that there is clearly some overlap between visual perception and
mental imagery. For example, there are experiments that show that
they make use of some of the same parts of
the brain and compete for some of the same resources,
so that one can potentially be mistaken for the other,
and they can sometimes interfere with one another. But despite

(23:27):
this overlap, there are also indications that visual perception and
visual imagination are not exactly the same thing. There are
some differences in how they usually function, and the authors
here are responding to theories that mental imagery might be
nothing more than a specific form of actual visual perception
of visual attention specifically, and so the article tried to

(23:49):
demonstrate that difference and explore one of the ways that
these two processes are different. So in reading their them
describing their experimental process, they say, quote in this study,
we used a size manipulation to demonstrate that imagery and
attention are distinct processes. We reasoned that if participants are
asked to perform each function, both imagery and attention, using

(24:12):
stimuli of two different sizes, large and small, and that
stimulus size effects two functions differently, than we could conclude
that imagery and attention are distinct cognitive processes. Our analyzes
showed that participants performed the imagery task with greater facility
at large size, whereas attention was performed more easily using

(24:34):
smaller stimuli. This finding demonstrates that imagery and attention are
distinct cognitive processes. So the task involved them like trying
to notice the appearance of small dots within differently sized
spaces and then uh contract the contrasting test groups. There
were sometimes those spaces were occupied by a shape where

(24:57):
they were applying visual attention, and other times those spaces
were occupied by something on which they were asked to
project mental imagery. And what they found was that the
people were better at the attention task, meaning actually looking
visual perception when they were dealing with a smaller space,
a smaller square, and they were better at the imagery task,

(25:19):
the the imagination task when they were dealing with a
larger square. So I'm not sure this tells us anything
about empty space anichonism versus direct iconic representation, but it might.
I mean, I wonder if this this has something to
do with like feelings of a sort of spatial expansiveness
in in how you manipulate imagined imagery versus how you

(25:41):
would actually respond to a physical statue that's right in
front of you and you're looking at it, focusing your
actual visual attention on it when you're concentrating on the divine. Yeah,
I mean, I think these these findings are really interesting,
But yeah, I feel like you could kind of cherry
pick them and apply them all over the place to
some of these examples we've looked at, you know, because
I'm I'm tempted for example to you know, come back

(26:03):
to what Ekartole said about, you know, find this small
piece of nature and focus on it, you know, focus
your attention on this bird or um you know, or
this uh, this this crystal or whatever. Um. You know.
I'm thinking about the you know, the the idea of
using the Christna stone and focusing on that as opposed
to the mountain that is also Krishna out of which

(26:24):
the stone was was harvested, you know. Um, like you
know both, I can see sort of see the value
of both, you know, and and sort of the largeness
of a god or a goddess or the relatability of
a god or a goddess, the the the you know,
at what points is it more advantageous or desired to
feel a sense of of like personal connection and concentration

(26:47):
regarding a divine figure And other times is it better,
you know, to have that sort of awe moment like
just thinking about Buddha imagery, you know, uh is it
that you know what if it's one You have the
Buddhas of all sizes, right, you have Buddhis that tiny
little statues that you carry in your pocket. You have
Buddhas that are are human side you have Buddhas that
are carved out of mountains and are like titanic and

(27:09):
inspiring works to look at. Well, I think about the
ways that different sizes of the same icon are I
think supposed to target people different emotions in in believers.
For example, the tiny crucifix that somebody wears around their
neck versus the Christ their redeemer statue in Brazil, which
is gigantic, you know, I think those are supposed to

(27:31):
create different feelings. One is a feeling of all, you know,
that that you are small and that God is big
and uh, and that you can kind of surrender yourself
to this gigantic, awesome power with the you know, with
the big statue versus the crucifix that you wear around
your neck. I often take as a sign of intimacy,
like closeness with God what sometimes Christians would call the

(27:51):
personal relationship. That that's probably not a term that that
everybody who wears a crucifix would use. Yeah, this is
all interesting, this will be something well well to hear
from listeners about as well. But but on the subject
of of mental images and visual images, um I started
thinking about this question of of you know, again, what's
what's the difference, what how do you compare the two?

(28:12):
And in looking into this, I I ran across an
interesting article by David van Drounen and it's titled Pictures
of Jesus and the Sovereignty of Divine Revelation, published in
the Confessional Presbyterian in twenty nineteen. So this is like
a theological journal where like there it's for for people
within the church discussing church matters. Yeah, but I found

(28:35):
it pretty relatable though, and what they're talking about here
because they're not really like diving deep into theology here,
They're just they're ultimately ultimately asking like, what's what's the
difference between these two and observing like sort of the
push and pull of an iconism and iconism um and
within this tradition all right, pointing out a quote many
traditional reform discussions of the Second Commandment, again referring to

(28:59):
the Ten Commandments idea of you know, graving images and
all have clearly taught that it prohibits forming mental images
of God as well as representing him artistically, which I
found really really fascinating because so much of what we've
been discussing so far, as you know, especially when we
were talking about the Christian example earlier, the idea that

(29:19):
if you have a very anichonistic medium with which to
um engage with, you know, this this stone that does
not look like a person, then you can kind of
summon whatever anthropomorphized incarnation of Krishna you want, you know. Uh.
And so basically, you know, I end up just sort

(29:40):
of taking the mental image portion of that for granted, Like,
of course you're going to then imagine Krishna in whichever
form relates to your your current circumstances or you know,
or you know what what you are looking for most
out of your religious life. Likewise, we were talking about
about God images of God when we're just asked, you know,
god reaction, what does God look like? And you end

(30:02):
up picturing the sky God from the Sistine Chapel or
from Monty Python or whatever. Yeah, and I alluded to
this in the last episode. But there there's actually tons
of debate among Jewish scholars about how best to interpret
the second commandment, you know, thou shalt not make under
the any grave and images. What exactly does that mean?
What are the limits of that? I mean, I think

(30:23):
it's clear from the historical context that one big thing
was that many of the other tribes of ancient canaan
Uh they had religious practices that would be centered around
a central cult icon. So they would have an idol
that would be a statue of some kind, and their
worship in some way was was around that or directed

(30:43):
toward it, And so the banning of idols was in
in one sense, I think you could interpret that as
just a way of saying, hey, we're not like any
of these other religions around us. They've all got idols,
but we don't. But that's kind of interesting because one
way that the ban on grave and images has been
in herported is not just like, don't make idols of
other gods and worship them, but also don't make idols

(31:06):
of me, the god who is speaking this commandment to you.
I do I do not want to be represented in
a in an animal form, say as a golden calf. Yeah,
so I was, But I was kind of surprised when
we reach the level where where some people take it
in the next phase and say, do not form a
mental image of the god in question, don't even do
it in your head. Yeah, which you know, and we'll

(31:28):
get into the like the major I guess arguments against that,
but it makes me think again of that this the
idea of the monty Python God, where if there's nothing
else to draw on, I'm going to draw on that
that one image, you know. Um. But but yeah, but
basically you reach the point in the argument where you
have to deal with the inevitability of mental images. It's

(31:49):
just hard to ignore. Um that this is one of
the points that Van Dronna makes in this is like
it's just something that happens automatically. It's that that gut
instinct imagining of the Monty pythe on God again. Uh.
And so critics of this have argued that if mental
images are inevitable, well then that means visual images are
perhaps permissible as well, like people, which I think that

(32:11):
that I can understand that argument. It's like people are
going to imagine what Christ looks like, and if we
don't give them some guidance, then then you know they're
gonna cling to something or another, you know, which I
feel like is kind of the case with these images
of the Dao Christian God, where it's like you didn't
give me anything to picture, so I'm only going to
picture the sustained chapel. I'm only going to picture of
Stephen Colbert skit or or the Monty Python depiction of

(32:33):
the Almighty. But then Van Drummond points out that that
it has gone in the opposite direction as well, people
saying well, if visual images are not allowed, then we
cannot have mental images either. Why on earth would we allow?
Would we wed said? Would we say no visual images?
If we're going to still let people have mental images? Though, again,
how do you enforce them? Well, this kind of reminds
me of some of the teachings of Christ about how

(32:56):
to obey the Torah, and I think this was something
that was taught by other rabbis. Well that you have
heard thou shalt not commit murder, but in fact, if
you're angry with someone, you've committed murder in your heart.
So it's like, not only don't do it physically, don't
even go there mentally, which I think you could. You
could look at that multiple ways, but one way to
look at it is that's a sort of like extra

(33:16):
safety valve. Right, It's like, if you can't even go
that far, then you're not even going to get close
to committing a physical murder. Yeah, yeah, I can definitely
see the connective tissue between those two concepts. Yeah, um,
which I mean ultimately, I guess this is something that
you get at in any of these religious traditions. It's
like there's there's the external world of symbols and imagery

(33:39):
and literature and and and so forth, but then there
is there is inevitably the inner experience as well, and um,
you know the two are connected, but they are also
these these walls between them and and and at various
points in history people have really gotten caught up on
that that inner world, Like how to I mean, ultimately,

(33:59):
that's where we all are, Like, that's where that's where
all the main battles are taking place, right, That's where
you're trying to to enter some sort of meditative state.
That's where you're trying to obtain peace. So I think
it's interesting to note that there have been strong trends
not just of an iconism, but sometimes of pronounced actual
anti iconism in all three of the major Abrahamic religions.

(34:21):
And remember in the first episode we made the distinction there.
Just because a religion is largely an iconic, say, they
don't use figural representations of the divine presence doesn't mean
they're necessarily anti iconic. It wouldn't necessarily imply that they
think figural representations are bad, though sometimes in some religions
that the figural representations are prohibited or are preached against. Yeah,

(34:44):
and in this we we really get into the subject
of of iconoclasm and iconoclass, which we well we touched
on already, I believe. But uh, you know, all of
this is very much tied to the discussion of an iconism.
Now a lot of you've probably heard various are and
thinkers referred to broadly as iconoclass. I say, unfortunately, like

(35:05):
that's the thing that comes to my mind first, instead
of like examples from Byzantine history. It's more, uh, you know,
various Rolling Stone headlines. And in fact, I did a
search for iconoclass on Rolling Stones website. Okay, here just
a few of the people that come up being described
as iconoclass or being mentioned in articles where the word

(35:28):
iconoclass is used. So Anthony Bourdain, Noel Gallagher, Justin Thurreau, Golfer,
David Ferret, I believe that's Ferret, and I don't know this, Golfer,
Lady Gaga, Tom Petty Chance, the Rapper, Frank Zappa, Amy Winehouse,
Iggy Pop York, George Romero, slipnot slip not so just

(35:53):
just to name of you, now I should say, like
this is all perfectly fair, because iconoclass has come to
mean anyone who attacks or breaks down cherished beliefs or institutions.
You know, someone who says, you might think rock and
roll is this, but it's actually this. It's often synonymous
with rebel or contrarian. Maybe yeah, and it's it's you know,

(36:13):
there's sometimes I think where it's an overstatement an artist contribution,
but I don't know. It's ultimately all fair in the
in the game of like rock and roll pr right.
But more specifically, an iconoclassed is a supporter of the
eighth and ninth century movements in the Byzantine Church who
sought to abolish the veneration of icons in other religious imagery.

(36:35):
But we see iconoclasms in plenty of other religions as well,
And I think this might be you know, the better
way to think about an iconism in a way, you know,
outburst movements and crisis points in uh an iconism that
leave lasting effects on the culture. Um. We can see
examples of this of iconoclass them in ancient Egypt for instance. Okay,

(36:57):
so with like the the Akanatan movement, the pushed towards
something like a monotheism way in in ancient Egypt. Yeah,
with the Sun disc and and autonism and so forth.
Um you know, the shift to that and then the
subsequent return to um Uh to the familiar Egyptian pantheon.
Both shifts involved iconoclasm. Now, and as far as Islam

(37:19):
is concerned, first, let's just provide a brief overview of
the importance of an iconism in Islam as outlined and
and the Hadith a collection of traditions containing sayings of
the prophet Muhammad. So my main source on this is
a really excellent paper Between Cult and Culture bombyan Islamic

(37:40):
Iconoclasm and the Museum by finnbar Berry Flood of n
y U, an expert in Islamic art, and it was
published in The Art Bolton in two thousand and two.
So Flood points out that the two main arguments against
figuration in the prescriptive texts are that we should not
usurp divine creative power and that we should avoid polytheism

(38:04):
and idolatry, and in both of these flood rights there's
a strong concern with the materialistic worship found in non
Islamic traditions at the time. He also points out that
this was this was also a common move among both
Christians and Jews as well in considering the religion of others,
like look to what other faiths are doing and interpret

(38:26):
it as polytheism. Yes, this reminds me of things I
remember encountering in in my childhood in Tennessee, where conservative
Protestants would accuse Catholics of being polytheists. Right, yeah, I
think that that's very much an example of this sort
of thing. Now, the general consensus in the Hadith flood
rights is that one should not depict anything that has

(38:47):
a shadow. Thus we see this rich artistic history that
depends instead on abstraction geometry and script coinage for example,
that depends on script not figures. But here's the really
important take home them from flood. While Western commentators often
fall into this trap, you can't look two moments of
iconoclasm by particular sects or actors, such as the destruction

(39:11):
of the Buddhas at Bombayan by the Taliban. Uh In
Afghanistan as evidence of a fixed, sweeping and essential example
of broad Islamic culture. Instead, we're looking at a great
deal of variation, complexity, and sophistication in the Muslim response
to images, which entail varying attitudes over time and space.

(39:32):
Any points out that, you know, there's a lot to
gain from looking at iconoclastic moments in Islamic history, but
you can't classify them all under a single rubric for iconoclasm,
no more than you can do it for Christian iconoclasm
by looking at these moments, because you do see, uh,
you know, the issues shift around a bit in Islamic history.
So Flood points out that um the the the Umiad

(39:54):
Caliphate established an enduring precedent for an iconic coins in
six but quote even after this date, however, variations and
attitudes to figuration existed. For some later Islamic rulers issued
coins bearing figural imagery. He also points out that you
find Islamic palaces that were lavishly decorated with sculpture and

(40:17):
paintings that had anthropomorphic elements that were in stark craft
contrast to religious architecture of the same period. So, especially
during the seventh century, you would find this divide between
the way secular and religious buildings were designed and decorated. Okay,
so there could also be a distinction there between religious
art and UH and secular art within Islamic cultures, right,

(40:40):
and of for instance, just in the secular arts. He
mentions that anthropomorphic and zoom morphic images proliferated in that
realm again, the secular world outside of the religious sphere,
and that ultimately attitudes quote carried from individual to individual
and could change over time or with the advent of
political regimes with different cultural values. And that's one of

(41:04):
those statements that I think it may seem like an
overstatement of the obvious, but oftentimes outside of the Islamic world,
it's it's it's easy to just like look at it
as a monolith and not not you know, acknowledge that
that reality. Now this, uh, this gets interesting as well.
There were sometimes workarounds, such as the re contextualization of

(41:26):
the particular text or work or decapitation UH an item
or work, be it two D or three D, no
distinction was apparently made, it might remain on, you know, untarnished, unaltered, undestroyed.
If context showed that it wasn't being venerated, or if
you removed the head or the face from the work,
thus making it inanimate and devoid of a soul, Flood

(41:48):
rights and uh and this is interesting because you know,
I think outside observers, they might tend to just you
immediately think of like, okay, the decapitation or the defacement
as like a severe example of iconic class them. But
it's Flood points out there actually quote a type of
instrumental iconoclasm, as it permitted the rest of the work
to survive in an altered form. It's ultimately a creative strategy.

(42:11):
So if you have a say you have an illuminated text, uh,
you know, with the illustrations and the text is is value,
it's valuable knowledge. Do you destroy the whole text or
do you you know, you rip out the pages that
have illustrations, or do you just deface the images? And
therefore the the majority of the text remains, but it

(42:32):
has been brought, uh, you know, into um into the
room where it's going to be accepted by those that
would be critical of its use of imagery. So you
you get into you know, these various scenarios when you
get outside, you know, increasingly outside of the religious world
and you get more into the secular world. But avoidance
of divine images in Islam, flood Rights was pretty much universal.

(42:54):
And I've got I've got one more quote I want
to read from Flood here. Quote. There is no evidence
to suggest that the divine image was represented in the
Islamic world, despite occasional tendencies towards anthropomorphism. But in the
Eastern Islamic world, depictions of the prophet Muhammad survived from
the thirteenth century on. In later paintings, the prophet is
sometimes but not always, portrayed with his face veiled or

(43:16):
otherwise obscured. This reticence about the face finds a counterpart
in the activities of medieval iconoclass in the Islamic world. Okay,
so that would go along with the the depictions of
secular artwork that we were talking about to say, if you, um,
the artist might think that if you obscure the face
of the prophet, you're not inviting anyone to view him

(43:37):
as divine. Yes. But but I again, I think it's
important to drive home that in this example, really all
the examples we've been discussing here is that it's more
a story of different um movements of an iconism, uh,
you know, outbursts of an iconism and uh in the
ebb and flow across. You know, the centuries are longer

(44:03):
than you know. I've been having a thought as we've
been looking at a lot of these examples about a
general trend of a common back and forth. I wonder
to what extent this is true that I also want
to be careful not to just like gut feel my
way into problem, you know, over generalizations. But I kind
of wonder if there is often in religion a general
trend toward more iconic artistic representations of religious uh subjects,

(44:29):
as there is increased emphasis on familiarity and relationship in
in the religious practice, you know, the familiarity between the
God and the worshiper. And then there's a backlash that
goes against iconism when there's sort of a return to
purity movement that emphasizes something less individual, less relational, and

(44:50):
more more abstract. Yeah, yeah, I can see where that
could certainly be a part of it. I mean there's
also a frequent trend is like what you make these
these images out of? You know, you're making them in
their fine works of art, their their material possessions. So
I feel like there's the material uh, and the and
the rebellion against the material world that it takes place

(45:13):
in all of this as well, again across various cultures. Now,
almost everything we've talked about so far has been in
the context of religion, but of course some of these
same ideas about iconic representation versus an iconism could be
applied outside the context of religion. Yeah, I was thinking,
for instance, about the Muppet Babies. Um, you remember you

(45:33):
ever watched the Muppet Babies? Joe? Oh, yeah, I did?
I remember? Yeah, Well you remember we never saw the
nanny's face. Right, Oh, that's interesting. I mean we did
see legs. Does that count? I guess that's part of
the spectrum. Right, we talked about the spectrum in the
last episode that just seeing the legs and the sneakers
and the and the striped socks does seem less figural
than showing the whole body. Yeah. She she's kind of

(45:55):
the goddess of the Muppet Babies and we we never
see her face. What does it mean is is she
is she like a god? Can we not imagine what
her face is? Can they not see her face because
they have uh, you know, their their vision is not
good enough because she's pretty tall. But but this also
made me think of various franchises where there are particular

(46:19):
types of franchises, like the Star Wars sort of franchise
where it's it's been created, it's been you know, embellished
and built upon, and then you end up with a
certain set of guidelines, usually internal guidelines, for what can
and cannot be done within this fictional universe. Like the
main example that comes to mind is they like the
longstanding mandate that you're not supposed to give a name

(46:41):
to the species of Yoda. You know that Yoda Yoda's Yoda,
and you just can't talk about like what he is
or where it comes from. And a large part of
that is like you want some sort of mystery in
your expansive world. If you don't have mysterious gaps in it,
it will all feel too small. I am. I just
feel or that somebody has broken that rule at some point.

(47:02):
There's got to be like an expanded universe novel that
said what species Yoda was? They went to the Yota planet?
Am I wrong? I mean it's possible, I would I
would like to hear more about it, if that's the case.
But I feel like it was. It was pretty strongly
enforced or at least honored by people who were playing
in the Lucas sandbox. But but it but it made
me wonder, Okay, well what about you know, what else

(47:24):
is there, say, within the Star Wars world. Well, I
guess there's obviously there's the Clone Wars. Uh. When you know,
after the first trilogy came out, Lucas knew that he
wanted to do something with the Clone Wars eventually, so
there was a prohibition against prequel matters because he knew
he wanted to do his own prequel. Um. But but

(47:44):
I made me think about um visual depictions like it,
And again this would largely be a matter of like
internal um uh, you know mandates and you know, internal
statements about what can and cannot be depicted. But I
wonder if there are any you know, largish fictional universes
where there is some sort of prohibition against visualizing certain

(48:08):
characters or entities. The only example, possible example that came
to mind. I was thinking about this, and again I
have no access to internal documents. So is it all
just meet guessing. But I know, in the The Warhammer
forty thousand universe, I don't think you ever see depictions
of the chaos gods that are you know, the you
know that are trying to bring about the ruination of

(48:30):
the galaxy. And I wonder how much of that is
there being a mandate that says, hey, you shouldn't actually
illustrate what these things look like, or is it just
simply a matter of like professional artists working within that
realm and being inspired by by you know, you know,
a legacy of artists working in the weird and the
dark if they just instinctively know that. Okay, if you
have some sort of dark elder god, if you actually

(48:52):
draw it, you will diminish it in some fashion, and
it needs to be this sort of big, scary concept
as opposed to something that fits on a single page.
I've got one. What's that? Never see Dr Claw? Do you?
You never see his face? Just the glove. Not in
the the the actual series. I mean, I'm sure they
broke this rule into the the live action films, but yeah,

(49:13):
in the old cartoon he was he was. Yeah, you
never saw his face, just that clawed high hand, and
you saw his cat right right. Though apparently at some
point there was an action figure, because ultimately the purpose
of every cartoon is to sell toys, and so you've
got to have action figures. And what would have been
great is if the action figure had just been an

(49:34):
optical illusion. It's like a chair with an arm from
no matter what angle you look at it. I would
have given them credit on that. But no, there is
an action figure. That's just he's plastic. He's just got
gray hair, and he looks angry and he's wearing on
my black jacket. Can you look this up and find it?
I will look it up. But while I'm looking it up,
I think you've really touched upon You've basically answered the question.

(49:54):
Like all these things I've mentioned, Star Wars, Warhammer, even
Muppet Babies, I guess you know, these are all about
creating icons, mass producing icons and selling them, uh to children,
you know. So if there's an iconism within Star Wars,
that's to its detriment, because that's one less thing that
you can make into a figure and then start somebody.

(50:16):
But I gotta have you look at up, Rob, put
this put this stuff in your head. Oh now, the
first thing that comes up is is the toy, but
its face is obscured, So I mean as part of
the packaging, like the original packaging, you would have to
buy him to see what his face looked like. Oh
that's a good gimmick. But I still don't find another image. Okay,

(50:36):
here it is now I see it. Uh yeah, that's
not Dr Claw. That doesn't that's not him. Why does
he have such big teeth he has like he's gritting
his teeth and his mouth is opened, like his lips
are open very wide, but his teeth are clenched together. Yeah,
that's that's Dr Claw. What does his hair look like? What?

(50:57):
Who else has that three spiked hair? Is that like
go coup hair? I'm looking at kind of a thumbnail
of it, But I get strong, I get strong David
Lynch and David Cronenberg vibes, you know that like kind
of kind of white, impressive hair that kind of sticks up.
But still he looks angrier than either of those two individuals.
So I don't really don't know what to make of this.

(51:18):
This Doctor Claw here. Also huge belt, a gigantic belt
buckle that's as big as his face. Oh, not quite
as big, but it's it's a that's a big buckle.
Did we ever see what Cobra Commander looked like on
the old G I. Joe cartoons? Seems like that might
have been been another area where you were not permitted
to see, like what was under the mask. You just
had to imagine it. Oh, well, this actually does kind

(51:40):
of this connects to an area that I know, you know, well,
I wonder if masked characters in the desire to keep
the mask on. Obviously they're still anthropomorphic because they're in
their bodies. I mean, they're pretty much fully embodied. But
the hiding of the face does in a way seem
maybe lightly analogous to a type of light and I
can is um you know, it's obscuring one of the

(52:02):
most important parts of the human figure. Yeah. So if
you can never see cover Commander's face, like you can
never um like see him as a full human, you know,
like he's always going to retain a certain mystique and
in humanity. Yeah. So anyway, that that's all I have,
not not really much in the way of answers on
that on all of that, but just sort of questions,

(52:22):
um and and I guess that kind of that's kind
of the truth unnel on. Pretty much every example of
an echonism that we've discussed here is like it ultimately
raises more questions than we have real answers too, and
just kind of makes you think and ponder, Like our
relationship with images. Yeah, this is one where Uh, I've

(52:43):
really enjoyed this pair of episodes. You got into a
lot of interesting history and religious art and stuff. But
I do feel like I've kind of failed. I failed
to find like a good a good way to frame
this in a psychological or neuroscientific theory. Um. So I
don't know, maybe maybe listeners could help us out with that.
What does this bring to mind for you in in
those worlds? Yeah, we're a bit like Brother William at

(53:05):
the end of the Name of the Rose, where we
feel like that, you know that these ladders that we've
built and used and inherited have failed us in arriving
at the truth. We haven't when the library is burned, um,
and we just have to walk away from it. Well,
let's not die wedged in that secret passageway. No, no,
all right? Uh yeah, So once again we'd love to

(53:27):
hear from everybody out there your thoughts on you know,
especially any kind of um an chonism that you have
grown up in or you know, have a cultural connection to.
I'd love to hear from you on that. Certainly, anything
in the art world is fair a game, right in
let us know. In the meantime, if you want to

(53:47):
listen to other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
you can find us wherever you get your podcasts and
wherever that happens to be. We just asked the you rate,
review and subscribe huge things. As always to our excellent
audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
just to say hello, you can email us at contact

(54:08):
at stuff to blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.